"This is a book about responding to children. A book about listening and noticing children. The first move is not the teacher's. Rather, the starting place is the child's practice through language, drawing, and storytelling. This requires great patience, and I was struck by the time markers that breathed through the text. How long does a teacher wait? It could be ten seconds, twenty, thirty—long enough to tell the child you have all the time in the world to listen. This is a book that teachers have been waiting for but didn't know they needed." —Donald Graves

In the early grades, talking and drawing can provide children with a natural pathway to writing, yet these components are often overlooked. In Talking, Drawing, Writing: Lessons for Our Youngest Writers Martha Horn and Mary Ellen Giacobbe invite readers to join them in classrooms where they listen, watch, and talk with children, then use what they learn to create lessons designed to meet children where they are and lead them into the world of writing. The authors make a case for a broader definition of writing, advocating for formal storytelling sessions, in which children tell about what they know, and for focused sketching sessions so that budding writers learn how to observe more carefully.

The book's lessons are organized by topic and include oral storytelling, drawing, writing words, assessment, introducing booklets, and moving writers forward. Based on the authors' work in urban kindergarten and first-grade classes, the essence and structure of many of the lessons lend themselves to adaptation through fifth grade. The lessons follow a consistent format:

•what's going on in the classroom;
•what children need to learn next;
•the materials needed;
•the actual language used in the lesson;
•when children's literature is used, reasons for choosing the books and suggestions for other books;
•suggestions for other lessons.

Martha and Mary Ellen show the thinking behind their teaching decisions and provide a way to look at and assess children's writing, giving us much more than a book of lessons; they present a vision of what beginning writing can look and sound like. Perhaps most powerfully, they give us examples of the language they use with children that reveal a genuine respect for and trust in children as learners.

Table of Contents

Contents
Mini-Lessons by Chapter
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1: Storytelling
Chapter 2: The Drawing & Writing Book
Chapter 3: Drawing
Chapter 4: The Craft of Drawing
Chapter 5: Writing Words
Chapter 6: Assessment
Chapter 7: Introducing Booklets
Chapter 8: Moving Writers Forward
Chapter 9: One Teacher, One Classroom
Closing Thoughts
Appendix A: Bibliography of Children's Books
Appendix B: Sample Teacher Plans: Introducing the Drawing & Writing Book
Apppendix C: Some Materials for Young Writers
Appendix D: Cumulative Writing Record Form
Appendix E: Small-Group Writing Record Form
Appendix F: My Finished Writing Form
Append G: Writing Folder Inserts
References
Color Insert